London: Sylvester Stallone has said that he couldn’t have made ‘The Expendables’ twenty years back.

The ‘Rambo’ star, whose career stalled after 1990`s ‘Rocky V’, said he wouldn`t have made the movie earlier because some of the action men who appear in the film - which features the likes of Dolph Lundgren, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis - would have been too expensive at the time.

"It would have been impossible back then, everyone wanted their price, but they`re dropping drastically now, and people want to work," a news daily quoted him as saying.

"This was all favours, all done on a really low budget. Some even wanted to work for nothing, meaning me. I don``t think we could have got Arnold back then, never. He would have been too busy,” he added.

Sly—who co-wrote, directed and starred in the film, which is currently topping the US Box Office—also approached Jason Statham, Jet Li and Mickey Rourke to expand on his powerhouse cast.

"One time I thought of Ben Kingsley as the bad guy, Forest Whitaker and 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson), but I realised it wouldn`t work, and decided to go really `old-school`," he explained.

He said he also put in calls to 80s action stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal.